Since when did Naruto know about revenge?
by Fudgecicles
Summary: When Naruto catches up to Sasuke at the valley of the end, instead of fighting, they have a talk about how stupid Sasuke is to run off and join Orochimaru when it is obviously what Itachi would want him to do.


"Sasuke, wait!" The call made the boy in question stop and glance over his shoulder to see Naruto land on the statue on the other side of the river.

"I'm not going back Naruto. Give up." He replied without turning around.

"Why? Why are you running away to Orochimaru?" The confusion, hurt, and betrayal in his voice was practically palpable.

"Why do you think? Orochimaru can make me strong. Strong enough to kill Itachi! Knowing that, how could I not go?" Sasuke replied, subtly preparing himself for Naruto to recklessly charge him.

"So basically your doing exactly what Itachi wants you to do?" Naruto asked incredulously. Shocked, Sasuke whirled around to see Naruto looking at him with a 'are you seriously that stupid?' look. "And people say I'm the idiot!"

"W-what!" Sasuke questioned angrily. "What the heck are you talking about? I'm not doing anything that traitor wants me too!"

Naruto just rolled his eyes. "Are you seriously that blind? I thought I was supposed to be the oblivious one. I mean, come on, it's obvious!"

"Will you stop making fun of me and tell me what you are talking about!" Sasuke yelled at him.

"You don't have to yell you know. I can hear you perfectly fine." was the reply he got. But when Sasuke narrowed his eyes and sent a good amount of killing intent at him, Naruto figured it would be good to start explaining. "It's simple really. One, your running away to become a missing nin, leaving behind everyone that cares about you and subjecting yourself to a life of misery. Considering the fact that Itachi hated your family enough to kill it, don't you think he'd want you to be miserable, so if you were having a happy life, it would annoy him to know end?"

Sasuke blinked. "But I don't care about just annoying him, I want to kill him!" This just caused Naruto to shake his head again.

"Two, he obviously wants you to get strong and try to kill him. Why do you think he's let you live this long? I mean, I only met the guy once, but seemed very intent on you getting strong to try to kill him. Oh, and that reminds me of three. He obviously _wants_ you to hate him, why else would he be all like 'your hate is not strong enough. Build it up and come fight me'?" At this point Sasuke was sputtering out random noises that almost sounded like pieces of words. Naruto crossed his arms and waited for Sasuke to come up with an answer. He waited for about five minutes before anything really coherent started to come out of Sasuke's mouth.

"I...I...I...don't know." Sasuke replied, looking extremely confused and put out. "But that makes no sense. Why would he _want _me to kill him? And anyway, even if he did, I still have to kill him to avenge my clan!" Naruto just shook his head at his friends stupidity.

"To answer your first question, he obviously believes he can beat you no matter what. He probably just wants to use you as a punching bag, as entertainment. And even if you were strong enough to kill him, he's apparently running around with that shark guy, so he could pop in and take you by surprise and buy just enough time for them to get away and for Itachi to analyze your abilities and come up with ways to beat them next time you fight. And as for your second question, wouldn't a better vengeance be to let him live in aggravation his entire life because you will not succumb to his demands?"

Sasuke was just staring at Naruto with his mouth hanging open and a surprised look on his face. Since when had Naruto been smart? And capable of coming up with all this stuff? When he realized Naruto was finished he shook his head to clear it and asked, "So your saying that Itachi just wants to fight me for the fun of it?"

Naruto nodded, and when Sasuke gave him a dumbfounded look, he raised an eyebrow. "Why is that so hard to believe? The two of us have fun fighting all the time, so why can't other people enjoy a challenging fight?" Sasuke blinked again.

"Didn't think of that..." Naruto just snorted.

"You apparently didn't think of a lot of things." Sasuke glared at him.

"So since you are the 'smart' guy here who came up with all this, what do you propose I do then?" Naruto grinned, started rubbing his hands together and chuckling darkly, and got that evil glimmer in his eyes that appeared when he was planning a prank. Well, at least he was serious about this.

"Glad you asked. Now then, since Itachi wants you to live a lonely life, the first thing would be to come back to Konoha. Once there you need to actually start trying to make friends. Get to know people, let them know you. This will aggravate Itachi when he finds out that you are still living happily when he's tried so hard to ruin your life. You will still need to train to become strong,-" At this, Sasuke raised his hand to stop Naruto.

"Wait, If Itachi wants me to become strong so I can give him a good fight, shouldn't I stay mediocre?" Naruto gave him the 'are you seriously that stupid?' look again. "What? It makes sense!" Naruto just sighed and shook his head.

"First off, a ninja should never aim to just be mediocre. If you don't become strong, some other ninja will kill you and this entire thing would be pointless. Second, the reason Itachi wants you to be strong is so that you can give him a good and entertaining fight. So if you become extremely strong, but refuse to fight him, it will torture him to no end because he could only imagine the awesome fight that you two would have."

"But what if he attacks me? What do I do then?" Naruto nodded.

"Good point. That's another reason you need to make friends. Then they send a distraction his way, like a horde of shadow clones, and we leave the area." Sasuke nodded. He couldn't believe it. Naruto was making sense.

"But what about the shark dude you mentioned earlier? What if he tries to help?" This time Naruto blinked. Sasuke couldn't believe the amount of satisfaction he got just from knowing that he had managed to surprise Naruto. What was the world coming too?

"Well, I guess we would just have to keep him busy as well. Of course, the more people you have with you, the easier it will be to get you away. And since he would be wanting to fight you, it wouldn't matter too much if the rest of us fought him, as long as we didn't go all at and get him to actually turn his attention to us. That would be bad."

"So wait, let me get this straight. I'm not allowed to fight Itachi, but anyone else can?" Sasuke asked incredulously. Naruto nodded.

"Yes, though they shouldn't go all out, of course. They would be fighting to distract, not to kill." Sasuke nodded warily. Why was he unable to argue with Naruto over something that he had thought about for years? It made no sense! Unfortunately, knowing this didn't do anything to help give him a good argument to use. For some reason his mind just refused to go against what Naruto was saying for once.

"Anything else?"

"Yes, actually. Since Itachi wants you to hate him, you can't let him see it. No flying off the handle and screaming at him in rage whenever you see him. Just act like you have absolutely no interest in him at all, like his a fly or something that's just really annoying but not a threat. It will kill him, trust me, I know." Sasuke nodded again.

"I can't believe I'm about to say this, but you're actually making sense. I guess I could give this plan of yours a try. Let's go back to Konoha." Naruto let out a cheer as Sasuke lept back across the river, and then started running beside him on the way back to the village.

The silence lasted for two minutes before Sasuke broke it. "So when did you get so smart?" Naruto smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head.

"Hinata told me that a Hokage needed to be extremely wise, and since she's my girlfriend, she took it upon herself to make Shikamaru teach me some things." Sasuke blinked. He seemed to be doing that an awful lot all of a sudden.

"How did she make Shikamaru go along with it? I would have figured he would've declared it too troublesome and refused." Naruto grinned.

"He tried, but Hinata pulled the 'when my boyfriend becomes Hokage I will make you teach at the academy' card." Sasuke winced in sympathy.

"Your girlfriend is ruthless." Naruto grinned and nodded.

"Isn't it great?"


End file.
